Mean Girls Film Review
The film I chose to review was “Mean Girls” with Lindsey Lohan playing the lead character as Cady. This is not a movie that I would have watched if not for this class, as it is definitely a film for a younger audience. But I did think it was kind of cute, and there were definitely correlations to what we have been learning about in class.
One of the themes in the movie that stood out to me was how much her math teacher tried to encourage her in her studies and not to dumb down because of a boy. Cady was trying to get a boys attention in her class so she pretended not to understand it, when all along she understood it better than the young man she was trying to impress.
She also kept after her to join the math club and to help the school win mathematics matches. At first Cady resisted because she wanted to fit in and be cool, and one of the other girls told her the math club was death for your social life in high school. So she resisted until the end of the movie as she wanted to be popular and have a boy-friend. The math teacher was somebody who actually cared and wanted Cady to be self-sufficient and so she kept after her.
Cady had it a little harder than some of the other students as she first started going to school in high school. She had previously been home schooled and was really starting school for the first time. Trying to fit in was the main plot and the way she went about it was interesting to watch. Cady was seemingly a well adjusted girl before she went into public school for high school. But her need to fit in and have friends was enough for her to go against some of the things she had been raised to believe in. It reminded me of the story Packing, by Deborah Kim, as she had to move also after being in the same place for most of her life and her and Cady just wanted to have friends and fit in somewhere.
There were lots of spoofs on the Health Class and the teacher was spewing all kinds of untruths, such as “Don’t have sex or you’ll die” and then turn around and say here’s some condoms. Talk about mixed messages! It was just a dramatized version of what we have been reading about in the Purity Myth. At one point the teacher even wrote on the chalk board that “You will get clamydia and die” which only proves he can’t spell either.
In the end, when Cady did join the math club, and did well for the group, it was great to see a girl do well in a traditionally male environment. One of the things I was not impressed with was how they portrayed the girl on the other team as a stereotypical nerdy girl who was on the homely side but very smart.
One of the themes in the movie that stood out to me was how much her math teacher tried to encourage her in her studies and not to dumb down because of a boy. Cady was trying to get a boys attention in her class so she pretended not to understand it, when all along she understood it better than the young man she was trying to impress.
She also kept after her to join the math club and to help the school win mathematics matches. At first Cady resisted because she wanted to fit in and be cool, and one of the other girls told her the math club was death for your social life in high school. So she resisted until the end of the movie as she wanted to be popular and have a boy-friend. The math teacher was somebody who actually cared and wanted Cady to be self-sufficient and so she kept after her.
Cady had it a little harder than some of the other students as she first started going to school in high school. She had previously been home schooled and was really starting school for the first time. Trying to fit in was the main plot and the way she went about it was interesting to watch. Cady was seemingly a well adjusted girl before she went into public school for high school. But her need to fit in and have friends was enough for her to go against some of the things she had been raised to believe in. It reminded me of the story Packing, by Deborah Kim, as she had to move also after being in the same place for most of her life and her and Cady just wanted to have friends and fit in somewhere.
There were lots of spoofs on the Health Class and the teacher was spewing all kinds of untruths, such as “Don’t have sex or you’ll die” and then turn around and say here’s some condoms. Talk about mixed messages! It was just a dramatized version of what we have been reading about in the Purity Myth. At one point the teacher even wrote on the chalk board that “You will get clamydia and die” which only proves he can’t spell either.
In the end, when Cady did join the math club, and did well for the group, it was great to see a girl do well in a traditionally male environment. One of the things I was not impressed with was how they portrayed the girl on the other team as a stereotypical nerdy girl who was on the homely side but very smart.
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